Mumia can get new sentence
 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nati...abu-jamal.html

Mumia Abu-Jamal can get new sentencing, Supreme Court decides (LA Times headline)

"The Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for convicted Philadelphia cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal to have a new jury decide whether he should be resentenced to death or to life in prison...."

CA Law to teach about LBGT Issues!!
 

At Wonderland Avenue Elementary School in Laurel Canyon, there are lesson plans on diverse families — including those with two mommies or daddies — books on homosexual authors in the library and a principal who is openly gay.

But even at this school, teachers and administrators are flummoxed about how to carry out a new law requiring California public schools to teach all students — from kindergartners to 12th graders — about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans in history classes.

"At this point, I wouldn't even know where to begin," Principal Don Wilson said.

Educators across the state don't have much time to figure it out. In January, they're expected to begin teaching about LGBT Americans under California's landmark law, the first of its kind in the nation.

The law has sparked confusion about what, exactly, is supposed to be taught. Will fourth-graders learn that some of the Gold Rush miners were gay and helped build San Francisco? Will students be taught about the "two-spirited people" tradition among some Native Americans, as one gay historian mused?

"I'm not sure how we plug it into the curriculum at the grade school level, if at all," said Paul Boneberg, executive director at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.

School districts will have little help in navigating this sensitive and controversial change, which has already prompted some parents to pull their children out of public schools.

The Legislature suspended all adoptions of instructional material through eighth grade until 2015 to save money. Any new textbook with LGBT content is not likely to land in schools until at least 2019 because that process usually takes a minimum of four years, according to a state Education Department spokeswoman.

The transition should be easier in L.A. Unified, which has been a pioneer in LGBT education.

The Los Angeles school board passed a resolution directing students and school staff to refrain from slurs about sexual orientation as far back as 1988. Then, in 2003, allegations of adult school staff members bullying LGBT students prompted the district to step up its educational efforts, according to Judy Chiasson, coordinator for human relations, diversity and equity.

In 2005, L.A. Unified debuted the nation's first chapter in a high school health textbook on LGBT issues covering sexual orientation and gender identity, struggles over them and anti-LGBT bias. A section on misconceptions says sexual orientation is not a choice — a statement many religious conservatives disagree with.

Those topics, educators say, are clearly inappropriate at the younger ages, raising tough questions about how to carry out the new law in elementary school.

So sensitive is the subject that a children's picture book about a same-sex penguin pair is one of the most controversial books in America today. "And Tango Makes Three" — based on a true story about two male penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo that bond, hatch a surrogate egg and raise a baby together — has drawn the most complaints and requests for removal from library shelves nearly every year since its 2005 publication, according to the American Library Assn.

Chiasson said LGBT topics are controversial because people conflate them with sex — and, for religious conservatives, sin. "People sexualize homosexuality and romanticize heterosexuality," she said.

The Safe Schools Coalition, an educational support group for LGBT youth, says the only age-appropriate lessons in elementary school involve family diversity, gender stereotypes and anti-bullying.

Which is pretty much what happens at Wonderland.

On a recent morning, teacher Jane Raphael invited her two dozen kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders to sit in a circle and tell a story about their family. The students described a cross section of modern-day America: moms and dads and athletic siblings, crazy dogs, a cat named Lulu, a fish that died, divorced parents, a girl with two mommies.

There was no discussion about sex or gay lifestyles. The exercise simply underscored that families come in all sizes, shapes and configurations.

Wilson, the principal, said such lessons are about as far as the school would take any LGBT instruction.

"The issue is never going to move beyond the diversity of family," he said. "If it were to move beyond that, we would address it as a breach of developmentally appropriate instruction."

House Passes H.R. 358, the "Let Women Die" Act of 2011
 

"H.R. 358 overturns decades of precedent guaranteeing people access to lifesaving emergency care, including abortion care and says its ok that a pregnant woman fighting for her life be left to die.

Read it again. It is that breathtaking.

As Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) stated during floor debate, had this law been in effect 20 years ago she might not be here, because she was one of those women who needed an emergency abortion to save her life.

But the real lives of real women don't seem to be of great concern to the predominantly white male Congress.

“This bill is a collection of dangerous ideas that will undermine women’s health,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Most devastating, the bill eliminates protections for patients seeking care in emergency circumstances, and would allow a hospital to deny lifesaving abortion care to a woman, even if a doctor deems it necessary.”"


http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/articl...ie-act-of-2011

What a complicated mess.

"Stress and adversity can cause some to break, others to break records."

As horrifying as this is- expect more of the same with Rebublicans & teabaggers in control of Congress/Senate/Presidency if they win it all in 2012!

We simply must not allow this insanity to continue.

This makes me heartsick.

Ya. He did say that. Scares me to think what will happen if the republican party gains control of the white house in 2012. Like Anya said, they will then control it all. A trifecta. And the perfect storm.

Hundreds already lining up-LA Sports Arena...
 

...to receive a wrist-band to entitle them to free medical and dental care clinic this coming Thursday, for those with no or minimal insurance.

Many spent the night last night. Last year, thousands received this care.

Remember, CA has eliminated dental coverage for those on Medi-Cal (CA version of Medicaid).

In one if the richest nations on earth. This is appalling to me.

"Thailand is Under Water. Have You Heard?
 

And climate chaos in the age of rising C02 levels continues...

From -

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/i...splay/id/23034

Anyone I ask hasn't heard about it, but a full third of Thailand is under water at the moment.

The worst floods in 50 years have submerged a third of the country, which is bracing to protect its capital, Bangkok.

Experts say what would have been an unusually heavy monsoon has turned into a disaster because of deforestation, overbuilding in catchment areas, damming and diverting natural waterways, urban sprawl, and filling-in of canals.

This year's monsoon season has brought knee-deep water to Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam as well.

"Man and nature are increasingly estranged - coexistence is becoming a battle. We've hurt nature for a long time, and right now it seems that nature wants to pay us back," Somsak Khaosuwan, director of the National Disaster Warning Center, told the NY Times.

The flood damage so far is over $3.2 billion - over 1% of GDP, Deputy Prime Minister Kittirat Na Ranong told reporters. Because of the floods, forecasts for GDP growth have dropped from 4.4% to 3-3.5%.

In the US, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) took to the Senate floor Thursday to lament congressional inaction on climate change, noting that although climate science is solid, the "dark hands of the polluter money taps too many shoulders."

Steve Jobs' Estate (funneled into trusts) Likely to Not Owe Tax.
 

I read this article moments ago on MSN.

To me, this article serves as an indicator (if you will) of elements that mark, brand, what elitist mentally is capable of.

If this does not upset the general public and serve as a giant fucking wake-up call to the inner workings of complicit behaviors which facilitate such egregious interpretation and willful use of current law, I don't know what will.

~D

(excerpt of the article as re-printed from Forbes Magazine on MSN):

I’m not a betting woman, but I’d wager all my Apple stock that the family of Steve Jobs won’t owe Uncle Sam a dime of estate tax. That may surprise some folks given that Jobs, who died tragically of pancreatic cancer on Oct. 5, was worth $7 billion, according to Forbes estimates. But for estate planners, it’s all in a day’s work.

We’ll never know for sure what specific planning tools Jobs used. That’s because, being a very private person, he is likely to have passed as many of his assets as possible through trusts, rather than using a will. Unlike a will, a trust does not have to be submitted to probate — the process through which a court determines that a will is legally valid and approves the distribution of assets covered by that will. Therefore the terms of the trust remain completely private.

However, a trust avoids probate only for assets put into the trust. Reuters reported that in 2009 Jobs and his wife put at least three pieces of real estate into trusts (...).


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44905598...ss-forbes_com/

Wild animals loose in Ohio
 

Such a sad story. Per ABC news, in Zaneville, Ohio, that per the news, "has one of the least restrictive wild animal laws in the nation"; law enforcement has already killed at least 30 lions, bears, wolves, found roaming a residential neighborhood.

The entire area knew about the owner, who got out of jail 3-weeks ago after bring convicted of cruelty to animals! Why oh why, did they not take the animals???

The owner was found dead, the animal's cages were found open and they still have not found all of them! They believe that there may still be 20 or so -including a white Siberian tiger among others, still missing.

I don't understand this or why the animals can't be tranquilized!

Very upsetting to me to kill these beautiful animals. The order is shoot to kill.

http://news.yahoo.com/driller-wins-a...182239526.html

Just one of the many hazards of Fracking.

Thank God my parents had everything in Trust. What idiot would have an Estate the size of Steve Jobs and NOT have it in a Trust??

Fortunately, I abide by a set of values that allows me to not be narrow minded and not a part of the problem - As I see it, not you.

ps/ take good care.